Shades of Grey
by codeine
Summary: Chas grits his teeth. Things are going to change. John/Chas. Please read and review!


**Author:** codeine

**Pairing:** John/Chas

**Rating: **PG, for a certain 'f' word.

**Disclaimer**: two words… I WISH :P

Shades of Grey

Everything is black and white. There are no "shades of grey" and there is certainly no colour.

Chas sits on the cement porch under the awning, watching the rain.

These are facts:

(#1) Chas's father will never stop drinking.

(#2) The ugly purple bruises he has now will be sickly yellow-green in a few days.

-and-

(#3) They will never stop hurting, even after they heal.

Chas looks at the stairs, regretting the fact that he has nowhere to go but up those cold steps to a cramped apartment inhabited by a crude man who sits on a moth-eaten couch, drinks whiskey from the bottle, chain smokes death sticks and says next to nothing.

John isn't his friend; John can't stand him.

But at least Chas knows John will never hit him, never lay a hand on him.

Being around him does hurt, though.

John is an abrasive, insensitive bastard and Chas knows this fact better than most.

But would it be too hard for John to say thanks, just once? Acknowledge his devotion, his _presence?_

Chas is so loyal it's a character flaw; he would give anything, everything for John.

His cell phone rings loudly, startling him from his thoughts.

It's his boss, telling him: "Turn in the cab and don't come back."

Chas doesn't respond, just hangs up and hurls his mobile out into the wet street.

Again he looks at the stairs.

He grits his teeth.

Things are going to change, he decides.

Maybe it's the bruises that make him decide to stand up for himself. Maybe it's the final straw.

Chas flings the door open but he doesn't take off his hat and jacket, doesn't flop onto the couch with a dusty book and prop up his feet, only glares at John from the doorway, refusing to even fully enter the room.

John gazes back evenly from his chair near the window, smoking silently. He waits.

"I got fired," Chas growls in a tone of voice John's never heard from him before.

"What for?" the exorcist asks dully, pretending to care because he thinks that's what Chas wants.

"What _for_? What _fucking _for?" Chas clenches his jaw, grinds his teeth. "John, when's the last time I had a customer?"

"Half an hour ago. Me," John replies simply.

"But you're _not _a customer! You've never paid me! Not _once_!"

John takes his wallet from his jacket pocket and tosses it across the room. It hits the floor near Chas's feet. Chas ignores it entirely.

"Go on, kid. Take it. Take all of it. Go on." John is serious.

"I don't want your money!"

John looks at him. "Stop yelling," he says calmly.

"I'm not yelling!" the boy yells.

He fumes for a moment.

Then:

"I'm tired of playing this game," he says quieter. "Sometimes I need to matter more than an exorcism, more than your damn cigarettes, more than the skanks and the whiskey. You have flaws, John. I know that. But at the end of the day, the 'why' doesn't matter, because you will _always _hate me. Regardless."

John breathes. "I don't hate you, Chas," he says softly.

"Then maybe you should stop acting like you do," Chas bites.

There's a heated silence.

"I don't know what you want me to say." John's voice is quiet.

"Anything, John! _Anything_! Come on! You're a plant! You sit around and watch things happen! You _can't _say you don't see!" _I love you._

Chas doesn't say the last three words aloud, but John hears them anyway.

"I _do _see, Chas."

"What do you see?" Chas asks, his voice cracking and his round brown eyes shining with unshed tears.

"You're crying," John says as one of them escapes.

He gets up, then, goes to the boy, wipes away the tear with his thumb.

Chas falls apart, and as John watches, something inside him falls apart, too.

John pulls the boy to him and holds him close as he cries.

"I'm broken…" The voice is high-pitched and muffled by John's shirt.

"Nothing about you is broken, Chas," John says softly.

Outside, the rain has stopped. The air is cool and raindrops glitter brightly under the light of a full moon. They look like magic, brightening ever theirs, the filthiest street in LA.

They're almost like tears, actually, comparable to the beauty of the liquid emotion that streams down the cheeks of an unappreciated boy as he is held in the arms of his mentor, comforted by the very person who prompted this breakdown.

And it is either the magic of the night or the timing of Chas's accidental confession of love or the two combined that makes John tilt the boy's face upward and gently kiss him mouth.

When Chas opens his eyes, the colour has returned to the world.


End file.
